Filed under: Civil Liberties, Mississippi, Politics | Tags: Freedom of Information, Law, Secrecy
This article on freedom of information from one of the local papers looks promising.
I’m not exactly a fan of the Gannett organization, but I am glad they’re pointing out the pathetic state of open records in Mississippi. According to the article, the Magnolia State is not the only place where this is a problem :
A national study gives Mississippi a failing grade for its government sunshine laws. In that, Mississippi is not alone: 38 states got an “F” in the 2007 study by the Better Government Association and the National Freedom of Information Coalition. The research is posted at www.nfoic.org.
I’ve only scanned the article, and I haven’t had a chance to look at the research they’re referring to, but I think the more we hear about this, the better. It seems like we go through this every 15 years or so in Mississippi. We get a lot of new laws that are intended to allow public access to government information, and then they get rolled back one by one until the papers make a big deal out of it and we get new laws and it starts all over again.
This is the first of an eight-part series that will run through next Sunday. Still to come, according to the front page of the print version:
Tomorrow - Status and lax enforcement of the law
Tuesday - Campaign finance
Wednesday - Crime reports kept secret
Thursday - Exemptions for public-private groups
Friday - Sunshine heroes
Saturday - How to find the truth
Sunday - Defending confidentiality
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This is not surprising. Mississippi is bordering on having an active version of the Gestapo anyway. No shock that it’s hard for “lay persons” to get information on what’s really going on. Any Nazi-type governmental system depends on controlling information that is available to the public. Just look at our system in Jackson, with the sheriff/police chief and the hated-by-all mayor somehow still in power. Try to get some information on this and see how skewed it is. Blatant manure! Did I hear someone say, “Let them eat cake”?
Comment by Truelover 11 February, 2008 @ 12:06 amGlad you made it Tru.
If you know anyone else who might like what we’re dong here, be sure to share!
I understand your sentiment completely. I prefer to use the word authoritarian for these behaviors, because those you use are, in my opinion, too specific and too easy for people to dismiss as “extreme rhetoric.”
And I avoid those comparisons partly because of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_Law
Authoritarianism is one of the things I try to read up on, and I post links to stuff about it here form time to time. So read on!
Comment by Gene'O 11 February, 2008 @ 7:45 pmJust thought of something on authoritarian personality and behavior I read a while ago. I’ll post it as suggested reading, probably tomorrow morning.
Comment by Gene'O 11 February, 2008 @ 8:38 pm[...] It’s about time for transparency, argues the Pine Belt Progressive. [...]
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